The use of artificial intelligence (“AI”) is growing, but whether AI-generated works can be protected by copyright remains unclear and the position is inconsistent across different jurisdictions including the UK and USA. A recent US case, concerning a comic book which included AI-generated images, offers an opportunity to contrast the two countries’ approaches to AI-generated work in more detail.
US Copyright Office decision
Kristina Kashtanova is an artist and author. Their application to register their comic book ‘Zarya of the Dawn’ for copyright protection at the US Copyright Office (“USCO”) was initially accepted for the entire comic book. However, the USCO partially revoked its decision upon discovering that, while Kashtanova wrote the text of the book, they had used an AI platform to help create the images in their comic. The AI in question uses inputted prompts to determine the appearance of the resulting AI-generated images. The USCO rejected Kashtanova’s application to the extent it covered the images of the comic book (as opposed to the text) on the basis that AI-generated portions of the work lack the “human authorship” required to gain copyright protection in the USA.